A fridge in every MSP's office

• All 108 MSP's offices in the new parliament building are to be fitted with a fridge for personal use at a cost of 19,000

• Holyrood is currently 380m behind budget and 3 years late

Key quote: "MSPs don’t need a fridge; what we need is a freeze - on the cost." Fergus Ewing, Scottish Nationalist Party MSP.

Story in full: EVERY MSP is to get their own mini-bar style fridge in the new parliament building, it emerged yesterday.

A spokesman for the parliament confirmed that each of the 108 offices for MSPs in the Holyrood building has been fitted with a top-of-the-range refrigerator for "their own personal use".

The fridges have been built into the storage walls which are a feature of the MSPs offices, at a cost of nearly 19,000.

Fergus Ewing, an SNP MSP and a consistent critic of the project, said: "MSPs don’t need a fridge; what we need is a freeze - on the cost."

The offices have already aroused controversy because of the distinctive, "thinking-pod" style window seats which were designed by Enric Miralles, the late Spanish architect. The offices were to have had wash-basins in them as well, but these were dropped on cost grounds.

The fridges were first recommended in the original brief for the building drawn up by the Scottish Office in 1998 and survived the cost-cutting measures introduced subsequently.

The existence of the fridges emerged during the evidence of Brian Stewart, the lead designer, during his evidence to the Fraser Inquiry yesterday.

Lord Fraser is trying to find out why the project is 380 million over budget and three years behind schedule.